Friday, April 28, 2017

Going back to early recommendations, Mikey Reaves
was recommended by Parachute, one of the bands that played at the concert that
inspired my first five music reviews.

Parachute knows Reaves because he has worked as a
guitar tech and tour manager for them. Outside of that, Reaves works as a
producer, songwriter, engineer, drummer, and mixer.

Because he does so much, it may not always be clear
what his role was on a specific song. I will also guess that if you get a
chance to see him live it will probably be as a drummer.

It may also mean that you get a wider range of
musical styles. Much of it is country-tinged; not surprising as Reaves is based
in Nashville.

I particularly enjoyed his work with Emily Hackett,
whose songs like "Bad Weather" and "Worth the Weight" were
beautiful and emotional. That being said, there were also several songs about
beer. For added perspective, there is also a very short piece from a very young
Reaves, "Jungle". Lots of musicians start young, but there isn't
always evidence.

I enjoyed listening, and it was important to have a
break in the gloom after yesterday's band.

Thursday, April 27, 2017

Frightened Rabbit was the
very first band recommendation I wrote down, before I was even tracking bands
in a spreadsheet. They were recommended by Daniel Pearson, whom I reviewed back
in March 2013.

Obviously it's been a long
time. One reason for the delay is that I saw they had a lot of material, and it
was going to take a lot of time to listen to them all, even though the
preliminary listening seemed promising. In scheduling reviews, I have not been
great about remembering to include recommended bands along with the bands who
follow me, but I would work in others and still not get to them.

I give this unnecessary
prelude because while I believe Frightened Rabbit is a good band, I did not
enjoy them. The extra hours spent listening made that worse. If I had only
listened to two albums' worth I would feel better, but that probably shouldn't
be held against them.

There were two factors
that combined with the length. One is that it felt like a lot of unnecessary
profanity. That doesn't bother everyone. It doesn't always bother me as much as
it did this time. Actually, it felt appropriate for a Scottish band, except
that I associate Scottish profanity with rowdy good times. Frightened Rabbit is
so gloomy.

Again, that doesn't always
bother me, but here it was hour after hour of gloom, sometimes livened up by
unnecessary profanity.

It didn't have to be this
way. Among their songs, "The Woodpile" especially shows their ability
to build in emotion and drama. They can do that. They have a pub band sound -
which can be used for good times - and they were doing it for years before
Mumford and Sons.

Therefore, regardless of
my frustration, it is completely reasonable to check out Frightened Rabbit. I
do recommend doing it in short bursts, especially if you're experiencing down
times in your own life.

Both were about the marketing that is done to young
girls, preparing them to constantly be buying goods and services.

Packing was much
longer, so had more information on types of merchandising. Even for relatively
young girls there are lifestyle magazines and novels that are actually
catalogs, and many toys have web components that provide the opportunity for
more brand association and more shopping.

(I'm sure parents of
young girls have a much better idea already.)

Packaging was also more
scholarly, which has value, but Cinderella is a much
shorter and more engaging read. Both pay attention to the psychological
effects, though I think Orenstein has a better grasp. Neither was able to offer
much in the way of solutions than awareness: know about this, discuss it
sometimes, but they are still going to want these products.

Although we have not
covered them yet, when we get to The Feminine Mystique and The Beauty Myth, those also have a lot to do with marketing,
so there are ways in which they all go together. I am also more aware now of
how consumerism is incompatible with environmentalism. It is hard changing
things that systemic, so it's a concern.

But the point I will
leave with today - I think it came from Orenstein - is a claim that the focus
on dieting and weight loss started around the turn of the century. Previously
preachers had tended to focus on greed, but as many people were doing really
well financially, that became less safe to condemn. Gluttony was also a deadly
sin, and about taking more than your share, so it made a good substitute.

That indicates that
before, people thought of body size as more like height or hair color - maybe
some variations were more popular, but there wasn't pressure to change it.

Now there are many products
and services designed to help you change your body size, but it is still almost
as difficult to change as your height. (At least changing hair color has gotten
much easier.)

The almost guaranteed
failure of the products combined with the likelihood of the consumer blaming
herself makes it an almost perfect business. Yes, you have to make your
offering more attractive than the many competing offerings, but there is still
a strongly motivated market.

There are plenty of
problems with that, but it's interesting to think that it could have all
started as a dodge for ignoring the destructive behavior of capitalists right
around that time that "robber barons" and "gilded age" were
entering the lexicon.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

When my mother's dementia started, at first it was
just that she wasn't taking in new information; she still knew all of her past.

More recently there has been a split, where she
sometimes thinks there is another home and another set of twins. She misses her
home and her youngest children and worries about them, even when she is in her
home with them.

It doesn't help that we only have very old pictures
available. The most recent family portrait is about twenty years old, but most are
older than that. My mother looks at pictures of my sisters when they were ten
and twelve and is not confident that these forty-year-old women are the same. My sisters weren't even blonde yet when they were twelve.

It's because we all hate having our pictures taken.
We mainly wish we were thinner, though we might also wish for more hair or less
hair or smoother skin. That last family portrait was taken after my father
left, and it was a way of affirming that we were still a family. Maybe my
sister-in-law pushed for it. I know she said we would take the next one when
someone else got married - just one more reason to avoid marriage!

(This aversion to pictures among the family is also
why pretty much every adult picture we have of my brother contains his now
ex-wife.)

I knew it would be a hard sell, but I thought we
needed to take some new pictures for Mom's sake. We were getting together on
Easter; let's just take a few. No one fought me too much, because we love Mom.
There was still some feet dragging when the time came, but everyone pretty much
cooperated. I can see where a professional would do better.

My favorite picture was not posed. I was getting Mom
and Maria into position. Honestly, I was snapping to create a feeling of there
being no point in resisting, so just smile and pose. This is not a good
picture, and it is blurred, but I feel it captures something.

I did get a regular picture with Maria, but then
Julie got in, and the old pictures that confuse Mom are of the three of them. We
decided on this group shot. I like it.

Julie took my picture. I was a little horrified
about the size of my arm - is it really that big? (Some of that's the angle,
but it is big now, isn't it?) Still, we have to keep going. This is for Mom.

Then came my biggest challenge.

"Can you smile more?"

"That will take a lot of work."

I started trying to tell jokes, but I was taking too
long to set them up. If I had been capable of suddenly expelling any gas loudly
- regardless of which end it came from - that would have done the trick. Of
course, when he does laugh, he moves.

I probably spent too much time on that one. The
battery was starting to get low, and Mom was getting a little tired of smiling
- the downside of being the only one in every picture. Still, I kind of feel
like this captures something too.

So that's my family: flawed, frustrating, and funny.

I can't rule out that we should do an actual
portrait again at some point. My brother does intend to get married again,
probably. If we do, do I trust the professional to be able to get him to smile?
Do I make everyone eat a lot of fiber before we go? That poor photographer!

Monday, April 24, 2017

Being able to see the good in myself was fairly high
up on the Wants list. I am happy to say Ihave made progress there.

I am less happy to admit that I am not sure how it
happened. I don't really remember working on it.

There have been two areas where I have noticed it.
The more general one is that when I have failed to live up to my expectations
and start beating myself up mentally, I have to stop; no I am not really stupid
and a bad person. There are obstacles that aren't my fault. There are things
that I do right. It's not that I don't still want to improve, but I am not a
monster. Honestly, I'm not sure that vicious self-recrimination was ever
particularly effective.

Also, a few weeks ago I had posted the What are you asking blog post, and I knew I needed to give some credit to Sid (the college
friend I mention in it). I tagged him and he responded...

"Thank *you*, Gina! It's so flattering you
would associate me with such an insightful piece. Thanks for years of friendship!"

My first thought was that it wasn't that insightful,
but I hedged on my hedging. If he thought so, maybe it was.

We have been down this road before, where I think
all the people I hung out with in college were so amazing, and then they say
things back that sound as if I was also amazing. It becomes this very warm and
grateful moment, but there has always been this question about whether they
even remember how annoying I was. I mean, I was, right?

That has been part of a larger pattern where I have had
great associations through school and church and neighborhoods, with people who
seem to enjoy my company and appreciate me. Despite all the many kindnesses, I
have always felt on some level that they were just being nice.

Yeah,
but they would do that for anyone.

Yeah,
but they don't know how I get sometimes.

Yeah, I am starting to see it doesn't work that way.

I do not know why I am feeling the difference now,
rather than only trying to come at it mentally.

I know that I recently went through a round of
checking on people who I have known to be at risk. Usually I just respond to
things that I see, but sometimes I am more proactive, just in case. There were
some good exchanges, and some people are doing a lot better. That would be
affirming anyway, but I have read that when you attempt to build someone else's
self-esteem up, yours gets built up as well. That could have had an effect.

Also, if my focus has been more on my weaknesses, it
has been in more productive ways, with a focus on scrupulous honesty. Maybe I
am just open to seeing everything now, good and bad.

Maybe it matters that the selfies helped me get over
some of the rough areas with my personal appearance.

Otherwise, perhaps I should just view it as a
miracle. I know my weaknesses, but they do not exclusively define me.

I am smart and caring and loyal and tenacious. I am
strong. If I am not always successful in being good, I am nonetheless committed
to being good, and for good reasons.

I had heard of Tantric before but never listened; I
ended up really enjoying them. Singer Hugo Ferreira brings a layered richness
to the vocals, blending warmth and pathos. I suspect I would have better ways
of describing it if I were a coffee drinker.

The rock is generally straightforward and strong on
guitar, but they incorporate some interesting departures as needed. There is
effective use of more orchestral elements on "The One", and the intro
to "Love Song" reminds me of Hendrix.

I especially appreciated "Mourning", and
while covers of "Let It Be" are never necessary, theirs is good
enough to justify itself.

It feels like they would be easily enjoyed by Alice
In Chains fans, and possibly better for the couples among those fans. There is
plenty of pain in their music, but not without the ability to enjoy love.

Thursday, April 20, 2017

I sometimes combine bands when I have more than one
that isn't giving me a lot to work with. That is the case this week, but the
ways in which the bands are lacking are very different.

Obviously every band needs to make their own
decisions about priorities. My advice may not be needed or welcome, and I know
that.

That being said, I have reviewed over 430 bands and
still counting, so I have seen some things.

Midnight Kicks is a four-piece band from Chicago with a Twitter
account and a Youtube channel. That channel has three covers.

One thing I can't do is fault their musical taste.
They cover Green Day and Fall Out Boy. I am not familiar with the third band,
Sugarcult, but I like their version of the song.

It is enough to give me an idea of their aesthetic
and their playing ability. Based on that I find Midnight Kicks likable.
However, the lack of any original songs is glaring.

To be fair, there is nothing wrong with hanging
around and learning to play songs together. It looks like they are having fun.
Playing mainly covers doesn't even have to be a weakness, because it could work
well for booking dances and corporate gigs.

Still, when bands follow me on Twitter, I assume
they are trying to build their fan base, with a purpose of either touring or
selling music or something like that. If that is the eventual goal, it is
probably better to get some more material online before starting to follow
potential fans. A lack of material makes the contact more likely to be a dead
end.

If Midnight Kicks only wants to share that they play
music together and you can watch the videos, that's not completely unreasonable
- it's just a good idea to be clear on goals as you get set up on social media.

The band's delivery is fun. They work with a
low-tech setup - two acoustic guitars, bass (electric) and percussion via box -
but that should be easily portable and they bring a good energy to it.

Prophecy of Sound has a completely different issue.
They are ready to sell. Their sole Facebook link is for their store, and they
have a CD you can buy or download via iTunes. There is simply no way of telling
if it is worth buying.

Each video is only a promo. The Soundcloud files are
promos. There does not appear to be any option for hearing a complete song
before spending any money.

I completely understand concerns about giving
everything away, and why some artists don't want to use Spotify. I do not accept
that it makes sense to be this stingy.

Even if you don't have the budget for an actual
music video, it should be possible to do a lyric video - or even a simple sound
file with the cover art - for at least one song, ideally three. That way it can
whet the appetite of potential buyers, and give them a reason to be invested
emotionally before you expect them to invest financially.

There is one Youtube video that seems to have a
short segment from each song on the album. That may seem adequate, but I have
been fooled by brief clips of songs that sounded good before, later to find
that the rest of the song was bad enough to ruin the segment that initially
attracted me.

The moody vibe that comes through from the Prophesy
of Sound samples may be something that leads to a great album, but it is not
enough to act on.

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Despite all of my angst over the last half of the
series, there are also places where I can acknowledge reasons.

For example, I pointed out the illogic of sending
various characters from place to place (like why wouldn't they have brought the
books with them?). I know one reason for that is that the more characters you
have in a given scene, the more complicated writing it becomes. Killing off
characters both increases the drama and makes the ensuing scenes easier.

That sounds cynical, but the direction they went
with it - the Destroyer needed to be given the stick, so was breaking Nick down
so that he would gladly give it up to get his friends back - did work. It
followed logic and emotion. That was probably the most resonant part of the
finale for me.

That could easily have been the part where Nick's
mother and Aunt Marie came to help him instead, but that felt off to me for two
reasons. One is that the Grimm blood being the answer and the potion being
pointless - okay, you spent a lot of time on something that didn't matter.
Also, Nick's legacy has had good things about it, but his opening his circle
has been better. Aunt Marie told him to let Juliette go, and she closed herself
off to relationships. Nick was happier and a greater force for good by letting
people in. Her acknowledging that would have been good.

That was frustrating, but not as much as - in
addition to many of the character inconsistencies mentioned in previous posts -
the inconsistent logic of the prophecy. The stars were getting aligned for the
Destroyer to come through, but really he needed a Grimm to follow through.
That's fine in that it explains his desire for Kelly, but what are the stars
for if the Grimm is enough?

If Eve is secretly planning on going through while
saying she's not, that can be a choice, but they should have had her saying
more cryptic things - either lying better or causing more concern with the
others. Also, it appears that the only real development from her time on the
other side was noticing that the staff consisted of pieces put back together,
indicating the necessity of the stick. That's a fairly simple concept to
require a whole episode in a horrible place that is not going to be fixed and
that clearly suffered from a lack of budget.

Those types of problems come from not thinking
things through, which is of course where we also get dropped plot threads and
connections from out of nowhere. For example, Renard's mother (whose knowledge
would have been handy) went to search for Diana because she wanted her
grandchild. She never shows up again. How did Meisner end up with Hadrian's Wall?

Here are some thoughts on what I wouldhave done differently. I am picking up after
Season 4, despite objections that I have raised to some things that happened in
previous seasons.

We know the Royals wanted the keys, but they
probably also did not know their purpose. We also have seen them exert some
control over Wesen who are getting out of line. I propose that the
disorganization in the wake of the king's death was the catalyst in Black Claw
really bursting out. The Resistance has Black Claw sympathizers, because there
are appealing things about being able to be open and in control. It definitely
pulled in the scattered Tribunal members. That is how Diana ended up with Black
Claw after Kelly's death. Meisner felt guilty about this, and his attempts to
right the wrong are what got him involved in Hadrian's Wall.

Bonaparte knew that the portal was going to open,
and part of Black Claw's actions were preparations to receive the Destroyer,
giving him a Wesen kingdom.

The combination of Eve's hexenbiest blood (which can
be used as for passage into other realms) and her being healed with the stick,
causes her to still be a target for the Destroyer, but seeing him in the mirror
is enough to show the staff and its fragmentation. There is no need to go
through.

The inclusion of the cottage in the final episode
did not make sense, because the people who spent the most time there had no
association with it. However, if instead of "Where the Wild Things
Were" you had an episode where Nick ends up back there with Renard to come
to terms, that could make sense. Their children are siblings, and Renard's
involvement with Black Claw was largely to get Diana back. There could also be
a moment where Nick talks with Juliette about what has been lost. Then she
could talk about her new sense of purpose, and that she doesn't regret it, even
if some of the losses have hurt.

Speaking of moments, it would have been great if
Adelind and Rosalee had been the ones who came across that last formula.
Perhaps they were having a moment expressing frustration with how pregnancy and
motherhood makes them vulnerable, and sidelines them when they want to protect
their friends and their children. Then they could realize that potential spell
and realize how it would be impossible for any other group but them, as if it
was something that was meant to be all along. (Instead of everyone going, oh,
that would be really hard, but I guess we can do it, or also forgetting they
didn't need to wait for Nick for Grimm blood, because Trubel was right there.)

They create the potion, but it needs some time to
take effectiveness and the Destroyer shows up early. The fighting goes down
essentially the way it did, except that while Diana is initially okay with
being the Destroyer's queen, she is not okay with him killing her parents.
However, she is at first too upset to know what to do. As Kelly and Marie
encourage Nick, promising that all is not lost, Kelly address Diana, to whom
she was a mother figure.

Diana brings the vessel with the potion out
telekinetically, causing the destroyer suffering but not killing him, which is
done by Nick lopping off his head. Nick hugs the children, but Diana is grieving
that everyone else is gone. Nick promises that he is still there and he will
always love and protect her, just like Kelly. Then the Destroyer body crumbles
and the portal opens up, sending us back to basically the same It's a
Wonderful Life ending.

(This will probably require a scene where Eve almost
goes through but doesn't, perhaps having Nick, Adelind, and Diana save her and
the others are on their way for that big reunion.)

And if you have other moments along the way, where
Adelind talks to Nick about her powers being back but not having the old wicked
urges, or she gets to talk about being a good hexenbiest with Eve, or where Eve
and Rosalee could have had a chance to talk about the changes she was going
through before she totally went to the dark side, those are all things that
could be good.

Plot matters because of what it does to people we
care about, but we need that time to care.

Anyway, I hope that's enough. I may still have some
thoughts about the show unexpressed, but I got a lot out too.

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

The title hints at what is going to happen in the
last three episodes, but it does still have a creature of the week issue, and
is therefore the last of the regular episodes. In it, we learn about the Wesen
way of dealing with dementia.

I still had some concerns with how life was treated,
but I could also tell they were trying to be better. We see one friend caring
about the first victim, and then rather than watching a second killing, another
precinct's prior report of an animal attack is identified as having also been a
victim of this killer. He is not a robber or hired killer or anything you might
expect; just an old man whose failing mind and Wesen abilities are a very
dangerous combination.

For a family dealing with it now - even in
relatively early stages - it hit deep. My younger sisters have never watched
the show. (They generally hate the concept of sci-fi/fantasy and reject
anything in that vein outright, except sometimes when they don't.) However, one
saw part of the show while I was watching. She couldn't look
away because it hit so close to home.

In one scene the man is wandering and searching for
his wife, Elizabeth, calling her and misidentifying one girl (who is not killed) as her.
Then his wife finds him and she reassures him that she is there. He asks
"Who are you?"

Ouch, and real. Having someone you love desperate
for something that is right there, and nothing you do will convince them,
that's real.

With the frustration I had been having over how
casually people were allowed to die, it would have been easy to get mad at the
wife for not taking action sooner, but how do you decide? She didn't know that
he had killed two people, just that sometimes he had disappeared while she was
sleeping, exhausted. It seems like having the option of some control would be
comforting, but then you have to decide; how do you do that?

I was a mess during and for a while after that
episode, but sometimes it is good to get the tears out. It's good to remember
that you are not the only person with that sorrow. That is part of the value of
art.

Part of the value of science-fiction and fantasy is
that by changing some of the rules we can view things from previously
unexamined angles. What makes it effective is still the truth we find there.
It's still the humanity.

At least, that's what I believe, and how I try to
write.

So, one last post on Grimm tomorrow, and then
I really hope to be done.

Monday, April 17, 2017

Way back when I first committed to Grimm I
was also committing to two other series: Person of Interest and Once
Upon A Time. I had already been watching White Collar. Now three of
my four dramas have ended, and there are indications that Once is
wrapping up. I have spent a lot of time on how Grimm frustrated me;
let's look at the others.

White Collar was the most ambivalent for me when it ended. I did not find the
conclusion exactly satisfying, but it was plausible, and you could even make a
case for it being necessary. There were definitely ways it could have been
worse.

One of the faces that I was happiest to see in The
Force Awakens was Ken Leung, and that was because of his recurring role as
Leon Tao (whom I adored) in Person of Interest. They were not constantly
bringing people back, but the ones they did, they did to good effect. That was
especially true in the third episode from the end, "Synecdoche".

Samaritan has decided that the president is an
acceptable loss, so is allowing a planned hit to occur. Team Machine is
scrambling to save him, but the situation is increasingly difficult and any
protective actions they take can look like aggressive actions to the Secret
Service.

Reese's growing feeling that he is being watched is
not just the paranoia of living in the surveillance state, but that people he
has helped during his time working for the Machine are there, and they are
there to help him, which they do. How many other people they are helping is
left open to speculation, but the responsibility of saving the world does not
rest only in the hands of the team that we know. Not only are they not alone,
but their good work is part of the reason they are not alone. Not all good
deeds are punished.

We do still lose two people we care about as the
series ends, but their losses are choices, and meaningful. While Reese's
decision is much more deliberate than Root's, both of them give their lives to
protect Finch. They do that willingly not merely because they care about him
and he needs help, but also because he has taken lives on bad tracks and given
them good things to do.

Of those left, Fusco and Shaw had been pretty
corrupt too. They had not initially been brought along willingly, but it
worked. They found higher and better selves inside. The series didn't throw
around the word redemption, but the concept was always there, along with the
equally true concept that you can lose a lot and still always find more to care
about.

Once Upon A Time did something recently that I loved and knew I wanted to write about,
but I am glad I waited because they did something even better last night.

Regina - formerly the Evil Queen - was always afraid she would revert to her
evil self. An encounter with Dr. Jekyll led her to believe that she could split
off and kill her dark side, which did not work as hoped, and suddenly there was
an Evil Queen acting as a nemesis again.

In the March 26th episode, "Page 23", they
faced off. I had thought that eventually it would be necessary for Regina to reabsorb the Evil
Queen, accepting that we all have our darker urges but our choices do not need
to be dictated by them. That could have worked, but was not what happened.

As Regina had the upper hand
her darker self spat "I hate you!" Regina looked at her and said,
"But I don't. Not anymore." And she pulled out both their hearts and
held them to each other, allowing some of the love and growth that she
understood to become a gift to the Evil Queen, and being willing to take away
some of that old hate she had once known so well.

The really interesting thing is that the Evil Queen
(perhaps no longer the best designation for her) ended up entering what had
once been a potential happy ending for Regina, but one that Regina had
outgrown. That was full of hope, but not as hopeful as "Awake".

One of the Evil Queen's bad acts before "Page
23" was to place Snow White and Charming under a sleeping curse that took
advantage of their shared heart so that whenever one was awake the other was
asleep (a Ladyhawke-style separation but for sleeping spells).

Regina wasn't having much luck reversing the spell; one attempt actually made
it worse where they were both asleep at the same time.

Instead, she called together townspeople and
friends, and they each took a little bit of the spell on themselves and diluted
it. There was risk, but Snow and Charming had sacrificed their happiness for
their friends, and this was a community. Everyone fell asleep, but then all of
them woke back up.

Back in 2012 there was one other series that I tried
watching and then dropped: Alcatraz. Lives were discarded too quickly, and without meaning. Sympathetic
characters killed others needlessly, and sometimes you may have been supposed
to still like them, and sometimes not, but it was ultimately at least too cold
if not downright sadistic.

If Grimm had started out like that, I would
have given it up a long time ago. As it was, I had invested so much time and
caring that it became more frustrating than "Oh, this show looks good,
wait, no, never mind."

I referenced Carolyn Hinsey when I wrote about
character-driven versus plot-driven. Another thing she always mentioned was
playing the beats. An event on a soap might be mainly about two characters, but
other characters who cared about them would also be affected, so check in with
the best friend and the aunt and everyone else. Not only does that give the
full emotional impact, but you don't need to rush heedlessly on to the next big
thing - a lot of the shows that keep doing really stupid things also move very
fast and with very little believability.

With one weekly hour it may not be practical to take
time for each person's discovery and reaction, but it remains important to
remember that it will have an effect. Some characters may accept a development
reluctantly, or with barely-suppressed anger, or with quiet moments of grief,
and sometimes there may be arguments, but those are the things that feel real.
"Moments" over "moves", in the words of Joss Whedon.

Friday, April 14, 2017

There is at times an aggression in the music
reminiscent of hardcore, but they never depart that far from melody. There is
energy and power - even force - but never so much that they lose sight of the
music.

One of their songs, "Lets Get This Started
Again" almost reminds me of Black Eyed Peas, but only the fragment of the
song that ends up on movie soundtracks or in commercials, not listening to the
entire song. (I'm not really a Black Eyed Peas Fan.)

Emotions tend toward the anguish of young love,
especially on "My Juliet", referencing anguished young love's most
famous case. There is frustration in "Twisted".

The overall tone is not gloomy. Songs about emotions
that tear you apart happen, but are still full of life. Other songs, like
"45's", speak to a defiance that keeps them going. It is a young
energy, but you do not have to be young to appreciate it.

Thursday, April 13, 2017

As I check out links for Ryan Boam for this review,
I suspect he followed me not as a musician, but a fellow liberal Mormon. That's
not a reason not to review, because there are good songs here. It is a reason
to not be surprised if there's not a Youtube channel or many of the other
common resources.

Not needing listeners also provides some freedom,
especially if you are otherwise gainfully employed. So while there are
full-length songs, there are also two standalone riffs (one rock, one metal)
that are just fun. They are fun to hear and were probably fun to play; if they
never end up in a full song it doesn't have to be a tragedy.

There is also a small instrumental -
"Jonathan's Awakening" - that appears to be a segment of a film score.
It is truly beautiful, though probably less representative of Boam's overall
work than "Six-Stringed Heart" which speaks both to having feelings
and to being a musician. With a deceptively low-key sound and full of good
guitar, that seems to be Boam's specialty. In addition, while "Murphy's
Son" is enjoyable on its own, having both a final and demo version
available provides a nice contrast.

I was glad I took some time to listen to Boam's
Soundcloud page. It is worth checking out.

This may also be a good time to remember that
"amateur" doesn't mean badly done, but done for love.

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

I know some people liked it - there were Diana and
Kelly alive and getting along and they still had their parents and were friends
with the triplets and the Grimm family legacy was being continued. (If it was
unclear how Renard figured in Diana's life, well...).

My problem with it was that previously anytime you
had seven people going gathering weapons to go kill monsters, there was a
horrible situation. Maybe they were energized with a Grimm determination, but
it felt different.

Stretching way back to the first episode, the Wesen
that attacked Nick's Aunt Marie was his first kill as a police officer. I
remember Renard asking how he was doing. Nick was soon to encounter many more
situations where he would have to kill, and where the official police report
would not be accurate, but at the time he still valued both human and Wesen
life.

It was clear that some of that came from being a
cop; that gave him access to solutions that his librarian aunt didn't have. It
may be hard to remember that far back, but it made the expansion to his world a
better one. Monroe and Bud became friends. The entire Eisbieber community
brought Nick gifts and pies. Initially every Wesen who saw him was scared, but
there started to be ones who heard of him, and knew could be trusted.

I loved that. The series really started taking a
dump on it.

Even when it would look that they were starting to
realize Nick was getting too callous, the solution was a comedic death, like
the Alpe falling and fatally hitting her head. Beyond that, for that episode
alone the hotel manager probably didn't need to die. The guy who tried to help
the first victim certainly didn't need to die. A simple assault could have
still gotten police intervention. Technically the other Alpe victim didn't need
to die either, but I suspect people found the loud woman dying humorous as
well.

One of the many dropped plotlines was that while in
a zombie-like state Nick killed a guy. Renard accused Nick of only caring about
killing non-Wesen. At the time I thought Nick's real problem would be that he
was not in control. He had made conscious - if fast - choices to kill before,
but not having been in control would feel scary and open the door to future
concerns. The series direction really ended up being more that Wesen lives
don't matter.

In one of the earliest Grimm comics, Nick
encounters a hot Grimm in Europe. Maya's early family outings consisted of killing monsters and then ice
cream, until this got her orphaned. Based on the premise of the Grimm world
that is clearly one way of doing it, but Nick was finding a better way. You
would think that after all he overcame, that would be reinforced, but maybe he
just turned kind of negative and decided the family that slays together stays
together.

You could still say that it's just a television show
and question whether it is worth spending three (or possibly more) posts on it,
but it matters to me as a writer and a human, and kind of in the same way.

Not caring enough about people can totally lead to
plot-driven instead of character-driven stories. That does tend to make
story-telling worse and betray the audience's investment in previous events.
That is something I think about.

And, I don't really believe that anything is
"just" entertainment. Maybe some things have less impact, and it's
easy not to think about, but I do think about it. When so many messages in the
non-entertainment media are about how many people don't matter, and who doesn't
get to matter, that attitude needs to be rebuked.

One weakness of the show all along is that it did
ascribe various traits as inherent to different types of Wesen, so maybe it was
always on kind of shaky ground anyway. There was still a time when it was doing
a lot better. Because of that I saw it through to the end, but now I am
relieved that it's gone.

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Here are two of the journal bullet points that did
not make it into yesterday's post:

I won't do it, now I'm doing
it. (referring to Eve trying to enter the other realm by herself)

Eve - Juliette - Eve - Juliette
- Eve

Those may
be somewhat cryptic even for watchers. Juliette started the show as Nick's
girlfriend and a veterinarian. Involvement with Nick led to her getting
kidnapped, put in a magical coma, and losing all memories of Nick, but once she
was in on it she got really into it, making friends, helping with research, and
even buying the vehicle that Kelly would use to hide infant Diana away from the
Royals. That was a bit of a turning point.

Believing
that the Royals had her daughter, Adelind used a spell to disguise herself as
Juliette and sleep with Nick, thus taking away his Grimm powers and becoming
pregnant with Nick's child. Undoing that spell led to Juliette becoming a
hexenbiest as well, which was a difficult adjustment, made worse by finding out
about the pregnancy. Juliette collaborated with the Royals, burning the
trailer, getting Nick's mother killed, and attacking Nick. It looked like she
was then killed, but really super-secret organization Hadrian's Wall worked with her to turn her into a
weapon whom they called Eve, who - while remembering everything Juliette did -
did not feel like Juliette.

I wrote before about not liking that Adelind raped
Nick, or that Juliette's transition to hexenbiest should have been a little
more nuanced than "I want my life back" "I don't want to go
back" - all spoken in the tone of angry. Starting with horror, finding a
little bit of elation with the power, trying to find a way to balance it, and
then going off the rails when a pregnant Adelind showed up would have been
better.

Nonetheless, I thought Juliette being a hexenbiest
was a great twist, and even becoming Eve wasn't terrible. It's just that it was
mishandled, and that lack of nuance is why it was mishandled. Writers who can
handle a complex emotional journey and choose to do so can have characters -
instead of repeating the same thing - say different things that lead to the
whole. They might get that it will look wrong when people - especially Hank -
accept a reformed Adelind so quickly. That should take work. There could have
been more emotions about Renard's ping-ponging back and forth. When everyone
goes off on a weekend retreat, and as they greet each other Eve is hugging
people - that level of relationship has not been rebuilt.

It's that kind of inconsistency that leads to the
bullet points. Eve was very firm about not being Juliette, and people got used
to it, but then when she was injured, Nick called her Juliette. That seems like
it should mean something, but it didn't, because Adelind is the love of Nick's
life now.

Except that never seemed real. Nick and Adelind made
more sense as that couple that a wacky one-night stand resulting in pregnancy
creates, and hey, they are both pretty hot and have some compatibility, but
that has a few steps to go through before it gets to the great love story that
some scenes tried to convey.

Adelind's attachment made more sense. She was always
pretty needy - which was not unreasonable. Her mother withheld approval, Renard
would use her but never commit, and alliances with the Royals are always kind
of dangerous. Motherhood, the vulnerability of being on the run, and then
spending time with good people are all things that could reasonably make a
change. Nick's charisma certainly wouldn't hurt, and the coercion that happened
in her relationship with Renard could easily kill any previously existing
attraction.

But it did not make sense for Nick to be so devoted,
or for Eve to be so okay with it. And when they do stuff like that, you see
missed opportunities all the time. When the love spell for everyone wore off,
she should have found her feelings still there. There were so many times that
they hinted at a difference in her after the healing; why not just admit that
Juliette's body with Juliette's memories - despite actions she would like to
divorce herself from - is Juliette.

That would not mean that they had to reunite Nick
and Juliette either. It doesn't have to be resolved. Yes, if a central conceit
of a series has been a love triangle, it probably should be resolved in the
finale, but that wasn't the case here. Nick was all about Juliette, then all
about Adelind. Feelings should be honest, though. If you don't adequately sell
those feelings, it won't feel honest.

I kept watching for the characters and cast, but it
felt like they were becoming worse actors toward the end. I don't think that's
because of a change in anyone's skill level - I think it's harder to make some
things work. They tried valiantly.

And that's why the ending felt hollow. Yes, Nick saw
what it would be like to lose everyone - and then he got them back - but those
relationships had bee undermined by plot-driven writing, and the emotions that
the writes wanted to be there weren't.